• A "10 by 15" renewable portfolio standard was enacted in Michigan in 2008 (comparable to several other states.)  Michigan's two major electrical companies (Consumers and Detroit Edison) have already invested a combined $2.1 million toward building the necessary infrastructure and generation capacity to meet that standard.

• Meeting a "25 by 25" standard will require at least an additional 5,000 megawatts of generation capacity.  Achieving that capacity through solar and wind will require at least 500,000 acres in order to house the wind turbines and/or solar panels . . . an area approximately 5.463 times the size of the City of Detroit (counting the entire area within the official city limits)

• Without even knowing whether the "10 by 15" standard was a good idea (that data likely won't be available for at least another four years), this proposal will require the power companies to invest at least an additional twelve billion dollars (that's $12,000,000,000 for those wanting to see the zeroes) to meet an Agenda 21 mandate that the legislature will have no authority to override . . . which may explain why Consumers and Detroit Edison have each committed $2.9 million toward defeating this ballot proposal.

Another brutal reality is that "green" energy sources, almost by definition, are going to be "baseline" in nature, in that they cannot be started up as necessary to meet peak demand, nor quickly and safely powered down when the demand ebbs.  Further, I have yet to see any verifiable data showing that solar and wind are capable of meeting the "five nines" standard of power grid reliability.

That last point may require some clarification.  99.999% reliability (hence the term "five nines") is an industry standard common to utility grids and telecommunication networks (including IT networks).  In practical terms, this translates to sufficient durability and redundancy to ensure an absolute maximum of five minutes of unplanned downtime per year, averaged across the entire grid in question.  Everything I've ever seen with regard to solar and wind caps their reliability at a mere 25% . . . not even close to the industry standard, even with what would be considered adequate redundancy for any other type of power generation source.

Solar power, apparently the holy grail of green energy advocates, is the most expensive to generate at 22 cents per kilowatt hour.  The problem is that there is no reliable data on how much it actually costs to produce solar-generated electricity, so all of the cost estimates regarding solar power are for infrastructure construction only.

And yet, in spite of the reality that "green" energy isn't all that it's made out to be, including mounting evidence from Europe that this is a bad idea, and including evidence that the projected economic advantages are being miscited, major players are apparently lining up to endorse this garbage.  Prominent on the list of supporters is Sterling Corporation, a Republican communications company and consulting firm.  For those of you familiar with playing political connect-the-dots in Michigan, it should be a given that, if Sterling decides that they're onboard with something, a certain lame-duck power player in Michigan Republican politics is likely to be close behind.

It's not like we shouldn't have seen this coming.  Those who actually pay attention to "That's Saul Folks!" may have noticed that on July 15th, July 22nd, July 29th, and August 5th (four consecutive Sundays immediately preceding the August primary), Saul Anuzis subtly laid out the case for Michigan embracing a rigid, legislatively inflexible, prohibitively expensive energy production standard as an effectively-permanent change to the state's constitution.  Not surprisingly, he cited a Think Progress poll and a collection of Ivory Tower op-ed pieces as evidence that MERA is a good idea.

So the press release from Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs last weekend, followed by an essay making the case for an "all of the above" approach to energy policy (from none other than the "former Michigan GOP Chair" himself), wasn't exactly unexpected.  This has me curious as to whether the quarterly filings for Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs will have any contact financially with Sterling Corporation, Coast-to-Coast Strategies, or Saul Anuzis directly . . . just because I'm curious like that.

However, while Mr. Anuzis seems to have plenty of Republican Establishment company with regard to his willingness to spend taxpayer dollars on Big Wind, his choice for the RNC nomination for POTUS apparently won't be on that list anytime soon.  From the Des Moines Register:

Shawn McCoy, a spokesman for Romney's Iowa campaign, told The Des Moines Register, "He will allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles, and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.

"Wind energy will thrive wherever it is economically competitive, and wherever private sector competitors with far more experience than the president believe the investment will produce results."

Assuming that Mittens backs that talk up with action, life should start getting real "interesting" for the windbaggers sometime around January 20th of next year.

Since it's not certain whether the wind-and-solar industry can survive without government subsidy assistance, and it seems that a Romney administration will be shutting that spigot off (as rightly should be done), I'm sorta curious as to why a self-proclaimed conservative leader is so damned interested in constitutionally mandating that which has no real business being in the constitution in the first place.